I have drawn Mrs Cross's attention to your posting, as I believe that comments from parents should always be taken seriously. However, perhaps it might have been more constructive to have discussed these issues with her personally and directly, rather than posting them on this website.
Of course we have a significant number of Arab students at N.I.S. We are in the Middle East, after all. If you really do not want your child to associate with Arab children, do you think that it was wise to move your family to Qatar? (In my class I have a wide mix of nationalities and I suspect that this holds true for most classes in the school.)
I would dispute your claim that we have "very large classes". I think that a class of forty or fifty might fairly be described as "very large", but classes at N.I.S. are nowhere near that size.
When I was teaching at The British School of Bucharest, many of the children started the academic year with little or no English. One of the reasons N.I.S. employs teaching assistants is to help children with limited English to be assimilated quickly and we also have several EAL staff to assist with this. Differentiated learning groups within a class should mean that children are not all given the same tasks, but instead they should be given work that is appropriate to their age and to their abilities.
Yes, it is true that N.I.S. is in the process of recruiting more teachers, but I think that it would be fair to say that most international schools have a problem when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff. Of course, paying the staff more might make it easier to recruit more teachers, but that would almost certainly mean a substantial increase in the school fees.
Dear Handbag Shopper,
I have drawn Mrs Cross's attention to your posting, as I believe that comments from parents should always be taken seriously. However, perhaps it might have been more constructive to have discussed these issues with her personally and directly, rather than posting them on this website.
Of course we have a significant number of Arab students at N.I.S. We are in the Middle East, after all. If you really do not want your child to associate with Arab children, do you think that it was wise to move your family to Qatar? (In my class I have a wide mix of nationalities and I suspect that this holds true for most classes in the school.)
I would dispute your claim that we have "very large classes". I think that a class of forty or fifty might fairly be described as "very large", but classes at N.I.S. are nowhere near that size.
When I was teaching at The British School of Bucharest, many of the children started the academic year with little or no English. One of the reasons N.I.S. employs teaching assistants is to help children with limited English to be assimilated quickly and we also have several EAL staff to assist with this. Differentiated learning groups within a class should mean that children are not all given the same tasks, but instead they should be given work that is appropriate to their age and to their abilities.
Yes, it is true that N.I.S. is in the process of recruiting more teachers, but I think that it would be fair to say that most international schools have a problem when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff. Of course, paying the staff more might make it easier to recruit more teachers, but that would almost certainly mean a substantial increase in the school fees.